Monday, 22 March 2010

A Few Things of Importance to the Pub

Just a few things if you're a UK publican or a punter who has a good enough relationship with your local landlord that you can point these things out to them without getting barred!

Poker nights are finally being cracked down on in pubs, it was only a matter of time and a lot of guidance has been issued on this matter but some licensees either chose to ignore it or haven't seen it; the long and short of the news is that you can only have very low stakes of £5 per head or £100 per premises per day (so you may as well just play for matchsticks!).

The other thing that licensees and restaurateurs may have missed is that it's now illegal not to offer 125ml glasses of wine for sale in the on trade, irresponsible drinks promotions have also been banned - but it would appear the legislation has some serious holes in it and has been rushed through.

That annoys me because I'm firmly behind everything in this amendment to the laws and if they've buggered it up then it just creates further uncertainty for licensees who have more than enough to worry about already.

4 comments:

Poker night Friday's are probably the most popular back at the local near where I grew up, you could argue it's kept the weekend trade going. Before poker was so popular Fridays had no theme but it was unofficially 3 card brag night (brilliant game!). And I can tell you there was more than £100 per table let alone the premises, even just for brag (£1 blind, £2 open). I'm not sure licensing pubs for gambling would be a clever move but a crack down in the law will certainly effect some pubs Friday nights.

The gambling rule seems to be almost unenforceable. How can a busy licensee check how much money is involved, perhaps on several different tables throughout the pub? But they'll still be done if the rule is broken, despite the difficulties in enforcing it. If I were a licensee, I'd just ban gambling completely rather than take that risk.

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Award-winning beer writer and author of Let Me Tell You About Beer Melissa Cole is living the dream. Not only does she write extensively about the world's favourite drink, she also works with chefs to create beer and food extravaganzas in venues as diverse as Michelin-starred restaurants to local pubs, and is invited to judge at beer competitions from London to Brussels and Amsterdam to America.
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